Yes, I started the day with only 40 km to go. I didn’t rush it given I was recovering from last night’s revelry at The Plough. However, well before lunchtime I was saddled up and raring to go. Mike decided to head off on the weekly food foraging while I made headway. He did assure me he would be back for the final few km though. He was as good as his word and was there cheering me on as I completely the last 5 km in record time.

I DID IT! Just look at that smile 😀👍

And the celebration? A fry up for lunch … not a piece of foliage in sight 🙂

Lessons learnt? Plenty I can assure you! I’ll address those in a future post once I’ve recovered myself.

For now I intend to rest and celebrate what would have been my boy’s 16th birthday today.

A massive thanks to everyone who has sponsored me, cheered me on, read my musings and generally followed along. Your support and generosity is truly appreciated. Thank you.

It was so great to be starting the day with only double figures to go. Even better than that, once today’s 40 km was done I’d halved the outstanding distance from 80 km to just the final 40 km. Result!

Mike was working from home today, working on some video based training, which meant he gets to make lunch. A rather extravagant salad was presented for my consumption after I’d completed today’s 40 km.

Tonight was a night out. We had a Lent Mass at All Saints before a more decadent appointment as ladies were invited to the traditionally boys’ drinking night at The Plough.

It was a good night to choose as Wales were playing Ireland in the Six Nations so the place was packed. We generally put the world to rights and the boys plotted future challenges for me given that #ASRF4050 is due to finish TOMORROW!!!!

Mike didn’t come out of this speculative planning unscathed though as a little bird told me he’d been challenged to a half marathon in October! Mike was last sighted running for the hills and I don’t think it was stage one of his half marathon training LOL

A early start to the day meant I had completed my 40 km before lunch. Talking of lunch I followed the 40 km up with a very pleasant foliage heavy repast. I must say I still find kale an acquired taste but at least it makes the raw mushrooms look like a rare delicacy

My afternoon was spent wading through reams of material for a new project before I approached the demanding task of crafting the weekend’s bidding prayers. Mike will be dropping them in at the sacristy in the morning and it’s always a relief to get past that worrying cut off point for them needing a complete re-write in light of some national or global disaster.

So anyway if you’re there on Sunday you’ll know it’s our turn again as once more we managed to include a reference to our furry pet friends. You can guarantee if pets are mentioned it’s us writing them!

Talking of which, Mike assured me he was visiting YouTube to research a thorny Excel problem … which didn’t explain the resulting 40 minutes spent billing and cooing over Samoyed videos! To be fair to him it’s easily done, you visit with work-fuelled intentions and then the YouTube “suggested videos” pass lazily in front of you and before you know it you’re hooked into compulsively viewing an endless round of impossibly cute fluff balls.

An urgent job disrupted my plans for an early start and thus an early finish for today’s 40 km. Since I’d decided not to eat until I’d duly completed today’s quota of kilometres I was feeling more than a little peckish by the time I staggered to completion.

Sadly, I had no time to bask in the glory of completion as the urgent job rebounded for more attention after lunch. As if that wasn’t enough I had a second important task that needed to be completed by start of business tomorrow. It was starting to look like an even later late night than usual would be needed 😱

This was especially so since there was a Mass at All Saints tonight. Fr Ned had handed the reigns to a visiting priest who had managed to find the biggest chalices I had ever seen for the Eucharistic wine. I have no idea where he found them (Buckets ‘r’ Us maybe?) but boy they held a lot of wine! Not an issue except when you’re on duty and need to consume what’s left over afterwards. And I don’t drink! Let’s just say I swayed gently back to my seat afterwards!

Said alcohol consumption made for an interesting time completing the rush job required for tomorrow morning. It was duly completed the right side of midnight but I decided to leave sending it until I’d fully recovered and was sober enough for a final read through before signing it off!

Doing what I do best this morning … geeking out! This time it involved MacGyvering a cross platform solution for managing text notes. An application for the Mac called nvAlt was duly installed and configured before I realised it didn’t want to play nicely with Dropbox to synchronise with my other computers. Handily it did synchronize with the SimpleNote cloud based service. So what I hear you mentally yell? Well the big deal was that in doing that it meant said MacGyvered solution was instantly extended to synchronise with my iOS devices. So I was one happy tech bunny today!

The day took a downward turn as I contemplated that all this geekery was merely delaying the inevitable call of my bike and I could defer my duty no longer.

The 40 km was split into two 20 km sessions completed either side of a foliage heavy lunch but it was when I returned to my desk that the day’s fun really began.

My computer did not take kindly to being abandoned for the duration. When I finally returned to it I discovered it had crashed spectacularly. Whilst not responding to any cajoling I tried to placate it while it was flashing dialog boxes up across all three screens faster than I could read them and beeping alarmingly. The mouse was possessed and thus useless in calming the system down. There was nothing else for it but a forced P-RAM reset reboot … there went at least 30 minutes while I coaxed it gently towards some sense of normal behaviour.

We have lived in hope of an Apple event announcing new iMacs for the best part of 3 years, hopefully this month will see the great event finally scheduled. Note to Apple: I have money to give you … BUT … I NEED a new Mac not iOS toys or watches or the even more ludicrous AirPods. I need a genuine powerhouse of a Mac. Hopefully, Tim Cook will take notice of my plea

I also spent the day freezing, I simply can’t get warm which is most unlike me. A couple of years ago I recall spending Christmas Day with the windows blissfully wide open and welcomed the icy artic blast.

You’d think after 40 km I’d be in need of cooling down but, without getting too graphic, it’s more the case of a speedily cooling clammy t-shirt sticking to you in a most inelegant fashion … and with that image I’ll bid you farewell until tomorrow!

A good start to my day when I finished all 40 km before doing anything else!

I think my incentive to complete the bike duty was avoiding the search for a transcription solution. I thought transcription was dead given we can now speak to our tech and on a good day it understands the odd request and acquiesces to it. However, it seems there is still a need for a solution similar to that I deployed back in my first role after university. Back then it was micro-sized tapes and foot pedals and to be honest it hasn’t moved on that much! The micro-sized tapes have given way to digital recordings but amazingly foot pedals are still de rigueur for controlling those recordings while they are transcribed.

I actually managed to find two alternative applications for the transcription part of the job and testing those took the majority of the afternoon.

Uppity tech was a running theme today as WhatsApp played havoc with dinner later in the day. I know what you’re thinking; how on earth can a messaging app upset culinary plans? Personally I had a supplementary question too; why had it never happened before?

Well it all started as the vegetables and fish were loaded into the new steamer. Mike set the timer and all that was left for me to do was make the caper sauce. If you ever tried to make perfect caper sauce you’ll know just how tricky it can be. Not long enough and the butter doesn’t brown, too long and it’s an inedible charcoal infused mess. After much trial and error we have it timed to the second.

So when the timer on the steamer announced we were at the half way mark with the fish and vegetables I got the caper sauce going. As it neared completion Mike expressed some concern that the fish was still looking somewhat anaemic and the vegetables alarmingly raw. How could we have been that far out in our calculations though?

That was when we discovered that the notification sound on Mike’s phone for WhatsApp and the timer bell on the new steamer were identical! We discovered this as the steamer pinged its half way mark … as the caper sauce completed its transformation into a treacly tar-like substance serenaded dulcetly by every smoke alarm in the house!

Lesson learnt: change the notification sound on WhatsApp to something unique like the 1812 Overture or keep your tech out of the kitchen … that alternative is so NOT happening!!